“Not only a great race car but an engine,” Johnson said. “We had fuel mileage and plenty of power. It was awesome on the straightaways today to be able to do what I wanted around other cars.”

The win came a week after Johnson nearly won at Dover. That apparent victory vanished because of a penalty as NASCAR officials said he jumped a late-race restart.

Asked if the Pocono victory made up for Dover, Johnson said, “No, but it’s OK. It doesn’t make up for much, but we know we’re a great race team. Things won’t keep us down. We had a great race car today and had a lot of fun. That was a lot of fun out there.”

Biffle was happy with a runner-up finish that jumped him three positions to 10th in the standings.

“Jimmie was in a league of his own,” said Biffle, who took the green flag from the fourth position on the final restart with four laps left and surged past Earnhardt and Kyle Busch in the first corner. “I was going to have to get up beside him, take the air off him–something to try and gain an advantage.

“But I gave him such a good push on the restart I couldn’t catch back up with him… I couldn’t get him.”

Though Joe Gibbs Racing drivers Kyle Busch and Hamlin finished sixth and eighth, respectively, Hamlin said he could feel a reduction in horsepower in his TRD (Toyota Racing Development) engine, after the engines were detuned in favor of reliability in reaction to several recent valve train failures.

“Any horsepower change is going to be a difficult thing to overcome, especially this week and next week (at Michigan), our two horsepower race tracks,” Hamlin said. “I wouldn’t be opposed to say that other guys probably stepped up coming to this race track, and we took a step back.

“It’s kind of a double whammy, but it’s something TRD’s going to work through.”